


Nothing alike

by JauntyHako



Category: Fallout (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Hancock having weird dreams, M/M, blatant disregard of canon backstories, ghosts giving spousal approval
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 07:50:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5448908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JauntyHako/pseuds/JauntyHako
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hancock gets haunted by his boyfriend's late wife. They have a talk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing alike

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoy :)

“I don't know what he sees in you, boy, I really don't.”

Hancock blinked in confusion at the woman sitting on the bouncy green spotted mushroom.

“The hell?” he said to himself, checking his surroundings for any other oddities. Usually his dreams were a little more abstract than this. Just shapes and colours and music. Real people rarely made it in. Certainly not with all their limbs in the right places. This woman before him looked as real as they came. Long legs, lips as red as the grass swaying in his dreamscape. She'd lit a cigarette and puffed it while she sized him up and Hancock, for all his bravado, suddenly felt self-conscious. One disapproving glance was enough to make him doubt his fashion choices, a curl of her lips made him want to hide his face in a paper bag. She wore military garb, too, the same pre-war issue Skyler liked to don when they went out. That detail gave her away.

“You're Nora. Skyler's wife.”

She blew out smoke that turned into flying ice cubes halfway up to the clouds.

“Aren't you a clever little man. Yeah, that's me. Nobody but Nate calls me Nora though. It's Mrs Skyler for you.”

She slid off the mushroom, movements deliberate and tense. Her hand hovered over her sidearm but Hancock got the feeling that was just her natural posture rather than an active threat. She circled him, tugged at the American flag he had for a belt and let it fall, Hancock flinching as it hit his pants, wondering what a veteran from the real army would think about him using the flag like that. Skyler'd never said anything but this woman didn't seem easily impressed.

He swallowed and kept looking at the ever-shifting horizon while Mrs Skyler made her assessment of him.

“You're nothing like me.” she finally said and Hancock couldn't tell if she sounded disappointed or pleased.

“Yes, ma'am.” he said. He felt, oddly enough, as if he was meeting Skyler's parents for the first time, desperately hoping to make a good impression. It wasn't the craziest dream he'd ever had, meeting his boyfriend's dead wife, but it felt like the most important one. She felt _real_ , as if she or her ghost was really there.

“We were in the special ops together, you knew that?” she asked. Hancock shook his head.

“He just said you were both military.”

“Yeah, we were.” The curl of her lips relaxed into a small smile. “We were the best. They'd have sacked us for fraternisation, but we got results. They'd give us a target and Nate and I'd go in and out, quick and efficient. From the moment we met we worked as a team.”

She paused, as if she wanted to say something else but decided otherwise. Instead she gave Hancock another cursory glance. He shrunk under her scrutiny.

“You know what's fucked up? Seeing your partner, the guy you were meant to, _born to_ , stay with out in the field with mutants and ghouls and other freaks. And the only backup he's got is a wispy little brat with a big mouth. Drives me crazy, it does, having to watch like that.”

Mrs Skyler flicked away the butt of her cigarette and lit a new one. She took a deep drag, never letting Hancock out of her sight, but not saying anything more. Apparently it was his turn now. He beat his brain for the right words, knew that he needed to say the right thing, needed to convince this woman that he was the right person for her husband. The problem was he wasn't so sure if he was.

“I'm not a soldier, ma'am.” he said at last, wondering if she'd react better to sentimentality or hard facts. Should he tell her how much he'd ached for Skyler ever since the first time they'd met? Tell her he knew the Commonwealth better than most people and could supplement with experience what Skyler had in sheer strength? Something had to convince her that he was worth it all.

“I've fucked up more times than I can count.” he continued, figuring that telling the truth was a good start.

She made a noise as if she knew or could at least guess. Hancock wasn't surprised. If she was anything like Skyler, she'd be able to see right through him. For the first time he looked at her closely. Focusing not on the clothes or the glares but the woman. The burn scars on her cheek, the muscles barely visible underneath a willowly frame, the thousand yard stare. He could see them both, side by side, the bear of a man that was Skyler, the mass of his body betraying his light feet, and her, strength contained in a body that seemed to shatter if the light broke on it too sharply. She held herself with pride as if everything she owned, from the scars to the fortune, was won by and defended with skill and determination alone. For the blink of a moment he saw the woman Skyler must have fallen in love with. He knew what to say then.

“I'm a stoned fuck-up and Skyler probably deserves better. But he's mine and if you're not happy with that you can fucking fight me.”

He pulled himself up to his full height, waiting for the inevitable. Mrs Skyler laughed.

“Well said.”

 

Hancock woke to the smell of scrambled mirelurk eggs and silt bean coffee. Most of the people at the Truck Stop were up and about already, chatting with each other or with Skyler who was out in only a shirt and trousers and flipping a pan over the fire. He got dressed carefully, wondering to what cocktail of drugs he ought to attribute last night. If only so he could avoid it like deatchlaw mating season. He ambled over, hugged Skyler from behind and kissed him good morning. Or tried to at least. He still hadn't gotten used to the sheer bulk of the man. With both his arms outstretched he barely reached around. Skyler indulged him though and turned around and bend low for a kiss.

“Sleep well?” he asked as he focused on the eggs again.

“I had the craziest dream. Your wife, uh, …” Hancock said, rubbing his neck awkwardly. “She was kind of an asshole, wasn't she?”

For one second it looked like Skyler would punch him. Then he breathed out, fixed Hancock with a steely glare and shrugged.

“Kinda, yeah. Why?”

“Got visited by her in my dreams last night.” Hancock said, while pouring some coffee for himself and waiting impatiently for Skyler to serve the eggs. Skyler made a sound to show he was listening, filling their plates with food and walking up to the dining table, Hancock in tow.

“She wanted to know what makes me so special, you know? Having you, I mean.”

“What did you tell her?” Skyler asked, pulling a chair back for Hancock who barely connected with it before digging into his breakfast.

“Told her that for better or worse we're stuck together and if she's got a problem she can take it up with me.”  
Skyler hummed, watching Hancock eat rather than doing it himself. He seemed to deliberate something.

“She beat you up, didn't she?”

“Yes, she did. “

 


End file.
